The present invention relates generally to radar cross section enhancers and more particularly to such an enhancer that would be appropriately utilized in a missle decoy.
There are many reasons to enhance the radar reflectivity of an object. Generally these reasons involve safety and accuracy and are used where space and weight are of concern.
A more subtile reason for radar enhancement is deception. In the game of global conflict, one of the offensive tools that would be used is the intercontinental missile. The fundamental defensive tool is the anti-missile missile, whose task is to destroy the offensive missile. However, because of the time and distances involved defensive action is usually taken to destroy the reentry vehicle after it separates from the offensive missile. Tests have shown that such defense is relatively simple and effective.
In order to thwart this defense, missiles have been developed with multiple reentry vehicles. Due to the limited lifting capability of the missile, most of the reentry vehicles are smaller, lighter decoys with only a limited number of destructive vehicles launched.
Since decoy vehicles are smaller they are readily discriminated out on defensive radar and the destructive vehicles easily identified.
One manner of solving this problem is by including within the decoy an antenna which will reflect a radar cross section that is identical to the destructive vehicle. This however creates an additional problem in that it must be done within the confines of the decoy vehicle.
Many various arrangements have been attempted and some successfully however, each enhancing system is limited to a very small specific frequency range and the degree of enhancement varies substantially with variation in frequency. Therefore as frequencies change so must the decoy enhancement systems.